- If these re-tellings of true stories were pedaled
as memoirs or autobiographies, I'd feel much better about
them. We expect people to embellish and dramatize their
own take on a story, and we often factor that in as we
read or hear them.
- Mike Wallace should get down on his bony knees and thank
god that Christopher Plummer portrayed him. Press reports
say that Wallace was on a crusade for a while, upset
about how he would come across in the movie. Without
resorting to vocal tricks or extended make-up (ala HBO
bio-pics), Plummer gave a great portrayal of Wallace.
- Sometimes there is a thing as payback. For years, MW has
scared and bullied interviewees. That he might be
pictured as slightly vain and theatrical (and hates such
a judgment in real life) has a ring of poetic justice to
it.
- Americans like simple good guys beat the bad guys movies,
whether it's Rocky or The Insider. The
middle-aged women sitting on my row at the theater were
rooting and shouting early in the movie at someone's come-uppance.
- Fortunately, this movie dealt more with ambiguity than
come-uppance. Pacino was limited in his rhetorical
speeches and vocal tantrums, which, in his voice, can
come across as grating (I'm thinking of Scent of a
Woman, although a few do slip out in this film). Per
usual, Pacino broods a lot, and is supremely confident of
himself and almost no one else.
- A writer in the New Yorker once said that all journalists
are deceitful, and this movie certainly plays along with
that thought. There is also an ironic touch when Wallace
quotes the New York Times taking him and CBS to task with
a comparison to Saint Edward R. Murrow.
- Corporate lawyers play the heavy and there is no atttempt
to make them human. They are foils for the characters.
The actor who plays the head of Brown and Williamson, the
tobacco company, was actually quite good as playing a
slimey villain. (Wonder why the muse never strikes the
tobacco people to tell their side of the story?)
- Trial lawyers, oth, come across as reasonable, thoughtful
types, only interested in the truth. And not all that
colorful. The best thing about trial lawyers is their
crazy eccentricities. In this flick, they're just doing a
job.
- Russell Crowe has presented one more excellent
performance to follow his fine work in LA Confidential.
In both movies, he plays his character with a bulldog
tenacity. Physically and intellectually, they are far
removed from each other, but that tenanciousness comes
through. He makes Jeffrey Wigand touchy, complicated,
intelligent, flawed, moody, a fellow who thinks too much
about everything.
- Midtown NYC is filmed in blue, blurry, an exterior of
darkness that is often contrasted with well lit interiors
of fancy restaurants where Wallace holds court by looking
at the menu.
- Must be exciting to have a life where one flies around
the world at the drop of a hat as these journalists do,
eat in fancy restaurants, peer down at the people on the
streets from high atop their offices, or peer out at the
ocean at fancy resorts and beachside houses.
- This battle portrayed in this movie is about people
different than you and me. Wigand, I guess, represents us.
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